HOME	Winchelsea in decline and decay.

The Decline of Winchelsea

The Town suffered seven major attacks by the French in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and, in nearly every case the attackers entered the town where they burnt, slew and pillaged before withdrawing. Although the houses were soon rebuilt after these attacks, the Town Hall and many public buildings were utterly destroyed. St. Giles was ruined and St. Thomas bears witness today to the French depredations. Winchelsea was one of a chain of towns on the "invasion front" of our Continental wars in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. The towns were seaports, frequently engaged in naval affairs, and were legitimate targets

These seven reported attacks on Winchelsea. The townsfolk, resisted desperately and, if sufficient warning were received, they called to their help any of the King's forces available in the district. But, too frequently, surprise was complete and the town was overwhelmed before resistance could be organised. The wonder is that Winchelsea and Rye continued to exist and that England was never seriously invaded during the Hundred Years War.

Yet the French were not the worst enemy. Having destroyed Old Winchelsea the sea now began to give back the land it had devoured. The new town's greatest days were those of Edward III when it provided a significant portion of the Cinque Ports fleet but the sand and shingle were gathering. Slowly a bar built up above the tides, the river narrowed and, as opportunity offered, men themselves helped the process by building dykes, "inning" here a few acres, there an arm of the tides, always lessening the flow and hastening the deposits of mud.

Winchelsea in Decay

Winchelsea's great days were over. By the end of the fifteenth century "the last merchant had left the town". Their trade had depended on the port, and there was no longer a port. From then on for 300 years Winchelsea's story was of slow and steady decline. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries support of the Religious Houses, like that of the merchants, was withdrawn from the town. Travellers in the 17th and 18th centuries wrote of it as 'Gone to decay' (Raleigh 1601), "That poor skeleton of Ancient Winchelsea" (John Wesley 1790).

The proud spirit of the Cinque Port lingered on, and the visitors also remarked on its Mayor and Corporation who kept the memories of former days alight. In 1573 Queen Elizabeth 1 visited the town and was impressed by the "grave Bench of a Mayor and 12 Jurats" and "the city like deportment of the people". From time to time efforts were made to bring prosperity back to the town. Queen Elizabeth's visit came after an unsuccessful petition by the inhabitants for a new harbour to be built. Two hundred years later Rye Harbour Commissioners did build a new harbour, but the harbour was abandoned almost as soon as it was opened. For fifty years from the end of the 18th century Lawns, Cambrics and Crepe were produced. These were supervised by émigrés from France whose names are remembered in two of Winchelsea's finest houses, Mariteau and Periteau. The mulberry trees found in some of Winchelsea's old gardens may also, date from this time.

Some of the activities of the town were not so creditable. The 18th and early 19th centuries were the heyday of smuggling, and the great cellars of Winchelsea made ideal hiding places for the "trade". The magistrates were kept busy dealing with cases of possession of "run goods" and other smuggling offences. As late as 1829 it was reported that 70 or 80 men went through Winchelsea at four o'clock one June morning, each man carrying two tubs of contraband.

The Mayor and Corporation (probably not above acquiring an occasional "tub") were more directly concerned in the profitable activity of "managing" the representation of Winchelsea in Parliament. Like all the Cinque Ports Winchelsea had the right to send two members to Parliament, a valuable right when large sums were paid to obtain a seat in Parliament. The Mayor and Corporation, who controlled the voting, were able to benefit by ensuring that the right person was elected. Winchelsea became a very rotten borough, and it is not surprising that the Reform Act abolished its two members in 1832. For another forty four years the town continued to be governed from the Court Hall until, in 1886, under the Municipal Corporations Act 1883 all local government powers of the Mayor and Corporation were swept away, in common with a great list of old medieval boroughs. But, as one of the Head Ports of the Cinque Ports, Winchelsea, alone, was allowed to retain its Mayor and Corporation, and still does so.

A Sort of Revival

In the 19th century it became a favourite haunt of artists and writers. Turner and Millais painted here; Thackeray, Coventry Patmore and Conrad wrote here; Ford Maddox Ford lived here as did the great Victorian actress Ellen Terry.

Winchelsea's historic beauty and its position as a Head Port of the Confederation of the Cinque Ports have resulted in its being honoured by a number of Royal visits. Her Majesty Queen Mary came in 1935. In the following year the Duke and Duchess of York (soon to be Their Majesties King George and Queen Elizabeth) brought their daughter, Princess Elizabeth, who as Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11, came again in 1966, on an official visit with the Duke of Edinburgh. And in 1980 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother made a second visit to the town, this time as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. She paid a third visit to the town in 1988 when the town was celebrating the 700th anniversary of its founding.

Since 1975 the charm of Winchelsea has been protected, by the acquisition by the National Trust of Wickham Manor Farm with its ring of land around the town on all sides except the North. It is now also a conservation area.